When Kayli Boozer steps onto the competition floor, she exudes the poise and confidence of a seasoned veteran. With each routine, week after week, it becomes increasingly clear – this is the result of months of hard work, determination and growth.
In Michigan’s home opener against conference rival Ohio State, the sophomore was unstoppable, posting a career high 9.95 on the balance beam, which one judge awarded a perfect 10. While many gymnasts might have been content with that achievement, Boozer wasn’t finished. She carried the momentum into floor, earning a 9.9 – a second career-best in one meet.
For Boozer, who once doubted whether she’d ever reach this point, it’s not about the numbers or accolades. It’s about the journey – one of overcoming setbacks, silencing her inner critic, and transforming into a gymnast who now shines on the biggest stage.
Physically, gymnastics has always come easy for Boozer. From a young age, the struggle has always come from the mental side of the sport.
“It’s really funny because I can chuck things if I want to, but the second I have to start thinking about it, that’s when I start to get really nervous because I have to actually learn how to sync my brain and my body up,” she said.
It’s fair to say Boozer has come a long way since her club days, where a mental block limited her to competing just a front handspring over the vault — a compulsory skill — and her scores weren’t catching the eyes of many college coaches.
“I was talking and conversing with several different colleges, but you know how the recruiting process goes,” Boozer said. “They try to flatter you a little bit, and then after that, it was radio silence once season hit because I was never really a strong competitor.”
During her senior year of high school, Boozer kept a list on her phone of the colleges she was interested in – some of them had gymnastics programs and some of them didn’t. One of them was the University of Michigan.
“This was right after Michigan had won the national championship, so I was like. ‘I’m not even going to bother,’” Boozer said.
Much to her surprise, the coaching staff at Michigan recognized her potential after watching a practice at North East Texas Elite. As it turned out, they were interested as well.
Head coach Bev Plocki gave Boozer a call after practice and offered her a walk-on spot.
“She believed in me before I even believed in myself. And that’s why I applied to other schools that didn’t have gymnastics, because in my mind I was like, ‘This is the only school that has really said that they wanted me, maybe Bev is just being delusional,’” Boozer said with a laugh. “For a little bit there I didn’t know if (college gymnastics) was the thing for me, but then in May I got the acceptance letter and I called (associate head coach Scott Sherman) to talk about the logistics of it all and I was like, ‘You know what — these were the first people to truly believe and go all in with me.’ There was still a part of me that didn’t believe in myself, but I was like, ‘I want to try this out and see what happens, and if they can believe in me, then eventually I can too.’”
In the summer of 2023, Boozer packed bags and made the near 1,000 mile trek from Texarkana, Texas to Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Once she arrived on campus, building her confidence proved to be an uphill battle. Boozer went from training alongside younger athletes at her club gym, where she was one of the few high-level competitors, to competing with some of the top collegiate gymnasts in the nation. The weight of imposter syndrome quickly set in.
“It was just coming in and training with people like Sierra Brooks and Gabby Wilson and seeing all the amazing gymnasts that are on the team and thinking every single day, ‘I still don’t understand why me,’” Boozer said.
Boozer competed in the exhibition spot a few times on beam and floor during her freshman season, but couldn’t find the consistency needed to crack into the competitive lineup.
“After my first exhibition, just getting that under my belt, I kinda started to feel a little better,” Boozer said. “But then as the weeks went on, I would fix one mistake that I had in the past exhibition and then make another mistake … I would take one step forward and three steps back almost every single meet … I knew that if I did what I did in practice then I could potentially be in a lineup but it just wasn’t happening at the time.”
It wasn’t until the off season that Boozer started to feel a difference physically and mentally. Fueling her motivation to train hard over the summer was the incoming freshmen class — dubbed one of the best in the nation.
Boozer knew if she wanted to crack lineups, she would have to take her gymnastics to the next level.
“I had known how good the freshmen were but I hadn’t seen them, so I was really just pushing myself even harder because I didn’t know how good they actually were until they got here,” Boozer said.
What Boozer did next left gymnastics fans around the world both curious and in awe.
Kayli Boozer needs to teach a masterclass on whatever the hell she did in the offseason
— jordan (@chileschuso) January 26, 2025
Over summer, practices were voluntary due to NCAA regulations, but Boozer decided to “take the reins” and put in the work. She intentionally worked upgrades she knew would make the skills in her routines easier and would track how often she hit her skills.
“I was tracking my consistency on each thing just so I could see it,” Boozer said. “That helped grow my confidence because I could see how often I was hitting … I would even tell (assistant coach Maile’ana Kanewa-Hermelyn) to give me some crazy scenario to put extra pressure on me so I knew how my muscles would react when I’m nervous.”
During the holiday breaks, Boozer told her family she had work to do and headed to the gym, fully focused on the season ahead.
When her sophomore season rolled around, the hard work quickly began to pay off on the competition floor. Once part of the supporting cast, Boozer is now one of the main characters for the Wolverines — a reliable competitor and a mainstay in the beam and floor lineup.
“Kayli Boozer by far wins ‘most improved’ from last year to this year,” Plocki said. “Coming from little Texarkana, Texas, and a gym where she essentially had no team around her, it was her and a bunch of rec kids — so it was a very different situation. Now she’s on a big campus, with harder classes and high expectations in the gym, and she was figuring that out last season. Now she’s figured it out and she’s doing great in school and in the gym. We’re so incredibly proud of her.”
Boozer’s potential isn’t limited to just beam and floor.
On vault, for the very first time in her career, she is training a Yurchenko full — a style of vault that has given her difficulties for years.
In October she went in with the mindset of “just playing” on the event and twisted the vault for the first time. After a brief setback, the vault is now bigger and better than ever.
“With vault this season, I just want to stay on the right track because I had built up my vault and then I lost it because I started putting a lot of pressure on myself,” Boozer said. “That’s a lot of what happened last year too and why I wasn’t breaking into the lineups like I wanted to – it was all the pressure I was putting on myself. So I just want to keep having fun with vault and act like I’m just playing around and seeing where that goes.”
With her newfound confidence and contributing role on the team, Boozer is keeping it simple this season. Instead of placing expectations on herself, she’s focused on continuing to work hard in the gym, continuing to believe in herself, and letting the results on the competition floor take care of itself.
“It’s hard to think about where I want to be in the next couple of years when I just surprised myself so much this year,” Boozer said. “So I’m just going to let things happen and fall into place the way that they should … I just want to keep doing what I’m doing in practice because it’s working.”